"While You Were Sleeping" drama: episodes nine and ten recap

 Air Dates: September 27th to November 16th on SBS, airs Wednesday and Thursday nights at 10:00 pm, two episodes per night

 Ratings(Nielsen) for the two episodes- 8.1% and 9.4%

Main Cast:

Bae Suzy as Nam Hong-Joo

Lee Jong-Suk as Jung Jae-Chan

Lee Sang-Yeob as Lee Yoo-Bum

Ko Sung-Hee as Shin Hee-Min

Jung Hae-In as Han Woo-Tak

Shin Jae-Ha as Jung Seung-Won

Hwang Young-Hee as Yoon Moon-Sun

Park Jin-Joo as Moon Hyang-Mi
Kim So-Hyun as Park So-Yoon
Lee Yoo-Joon as Oh Kyung-Han

 Slight slowdown in the intensity level for these two episodes though it did draw it's highest ratings for a Wednesday. The previous case involving a dream that the three main characters had lasted for six episodes, no new story was introduced though we did learn much about Hong-Joo.

 We did discover in the previous recap that Hong-Joo had taken a leave of absence from her job but we didn't know what kind of job it was. During her leave she's been working at her mother's restaurant to keep busy as she's a bit scared of returning to her job. The main reason is that Hong-Joo has been having dreams about herself being killed while on the job. She's lying in a field while it's raining but she hasn't found out what the details are about the incident.
 The job Hong-Joo has left for a while is being a news reporter for the SBC station. She was a hard worker and a rather ruthless one too as she would do almost anything to get a comment from a victim or criminal. That style of working may have worn her out too and for most of these two episodes she's struggling with the decision on whether to return to work or just quit.
 Hong-Joo's last story for SBC had been a high profile one as she helped to indict an assistant DA on a sexual assault case. That made her name known and even Jae-Chan's supervisor at the Hangong Prosecutor's Office knew who she was because of that story. Up until then Jae-Chan had no idea what kind of job she had left.

 Above is officer Woo-Tak who like Hong-Joo and Jae-Chan also has dreams where he can see the future. She was beating around the bush in a conversation and asked him what would he do if he had a dream of him dying? Woo-Tak's response was that he would change the events and didn't seem too worried if he ever did have a dream like that.
 The problem is Hong-Joo has been unable to change the events so all of her dreams have come true and most of them have been horrifying ones of accidents and deaths. Shortly after Woo-Tak had left Hong-Joo's mother's restaurant Jae-Chan entered with his colleagues from work. There had been a rumor going around the office that Jae-Chan may have been secretly seeing Hung-Joo. This raised the suspicions of Hee-Min who said they should check out who this woman is.
 During that lunch what we and the small group learned was how intelligent Hong-Joo is, her mathematical quickness is second to none among other things. That lunch is when Jae-Chan's supervisor knew it was Hong-Joo the reporter by her voice as it was a very distinctive one. One person who we saw very little of in these two shows was the crooked lawyer Yoo-Bum, he was in one scene early on and then we never saw him again which is both good and bad. He is kind of an evil person though that evilness does add much to the show.

 Hong-Joo is now determined to find a way to change the outcomes of her dreams. A recent one had to do with a small fire at Myungwon University where a young woman was seriously injured at a candle event. We're already up to the second episode as not that much happened in the previous show but much more did this time around.
 Jae-Chan and Woo-Tak also had the same dream about the incident at the university but all three dreams were a different version of what happened. Hong-Joo had gone to the college to prevent the fire and had even brought along an extinguisher with her, the event took place on March 28th. The year is 2016 and don't know if the show is supposed to end in the present time.
 Just as the fire was about to ignite and spread Hong-Joo sprayed the flames and everyone down with the extinguisher. She prevented a terrifying incident from happening but the crowd was in an uproar with what Hong-Joo had done, it had taken them so long to set up this special event. In their fury they tried to pounce on Hong-Joo who fled but seemed she would eventually be caught by the mob. Out of a row of bushes though jumped Jae-Chan and hid her away, his dream was of her being chased by the mob and getting a severe beating.

 The pair isn't out of the woods yet as the horde of angry students are still looking for Hong-Joo. In Woo-Tak's dream he saw Hong-Joo and Jae-Chan getting pummeled by the mob so he persuaded his partner to patrol the university area. Upon arriving there they saw the mob on one side of the street while Hong-Joo and Jae-Chan were on the other side. Woo-Tak and his partner were able to diffuse the situation from turning violent and stopped the mob from chasing the pair who were strolling across the street while having no clue what was happening behind them.
 The young woman who almost was burned to death was Cho-Hee, we never learned her name until now. She's a student at the college but also works at the cafe where Hong-Joo and Jae-Chan always get their morning coffee. After the incident at the college she had received word to rush to a nearby hospital.There she found one of her brothers dead from a car accident, the other brother had been the driver. Cho-Hee did have a few minutes of screen time but no clue on whether the death of her brother will become part of the story.
 You have to remember these episodes aren't regular length ones which can last over an hour, the total time for these two shows was 59 minutes. I realize the running time is very close but it's much easier and enjoyable to watch these episodes when they're only about thirty minutes and it's starting to become a trend now for Korean dramas. Brought that up now as we're almost to the conclusion of this recap.

 Mentioned above that quite a bit of these two episodes was focused on Hung-Joo and her struggle to return to work. She was getting quite a push from her mother but the final decision would be up to her and just a few minutes before the conclusion of the tenth episode she made her mind up to return. A huge factor in her decision was that Hong-Joo now has confidence that she can change her dreams, it's happened once but that's no guarantee it'll continue.
 The fateful day arrives and Hong-Joo is across the street from the SBC offices bright and early. Panic sets in as she can't bring herself to enter the building and just stands at the corner torn on what to do. It was unknown to Hung-Joo but Jae-Chan had followed her and was hiding nearby when she was debating on returning to work. The pair have grown much closer over these last few episodes but to me it's Jae-Chan who has fallen more for her than the other way around.
 He gets so frustrated at waiting for her to enter the offices that he grabs Hong-Joo's hand, leads her across the street and to the entrance of SBC. Jae-Chan tells her if he has to do that every day he will, he really cares for Hong-Joo but can't come out and admit it to her. Hong-Joo eventually makes it to her office with the final seconds showing her getting a new station uniform. Hong-Joo didn't know that was going to happen and she was quietly shocked to see it was the exact uniform she's seen in her dreams of her dying which brought us to the finale of these two episodes.

 Much less action and intensity compared to the previous episodes though still a fine pair of shows. It's okay that there was a bit of a slowdown as things for the next few shows need to start taking shape and it helped learning about Hong-Joo's past. Looks like up next could be what's going to happen in the death dreams that Hung-Joo has been having though could be wrong on that.
 Wrote this up before viewing episodes eleven and twelve so have no idea what's coming up but also have a feeling there will be few more developments to the storyline. Let's see if that's true and if you want to see what happens next check out the following post for the recap for the next two episodes.